I've spent almost my entire career as a journalist covering tech in and around Silicon Valley, meeting entrepreneurs, executives and engineers, watching companies rise and fall (or in the case of Apple, rise, fall and rise again) and attending confabs and conferences. Before joining Forbes in February 2012, I had a very brief stint in corporate communications at HP (on purpose) and worked for more than six years on the tech team at Bloomberg News, where I dived into the financial side of tech. Before that, I was Silicon Valley bureau chief for Interactive Week, a contributor to Wired and Upside, and a reporter and news editor for MacWeek. The first computer game I ever played was Zork, my collection of now-vintage tech T-shirts includes a tie-dye BMUG classic and a HyperCard shirt featuring a dog and fire hydrant. When I can work at home, I settle into the black Herman Miller Aeron chair that I picked up when NeXT closed its doors. You can email me at cguglielmo@forbes.com.

Apple Readying 'Products That Will Blow Your Mind'

They did approve another year of service for all eight Apple directors and a proposal, endorsed by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), that board members receive a majority to be reelected. Apple said that policy will go into effect next year, though it noted today that all the board members were approved by 80 percent or more of investors.

Apple’s board includes Cook, Gore, Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell, J.Crew CEO Millard Drexler, Avon Products Chairman Andrea Jung, former Northrop Grumman CEO Ronald Sugar and former Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson, who replaced Jobs as chairman in November. Disney’s Iger joined the board in November. Jobs was the biggest shareholder in Disney; his shares are now held in the Steven P. Jobs’ trust, which is led by Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell Jobs.

Cook received the highest approval rating, with 98.15 percent of shareholders voting to approve his role as a director.

He introduced each of the directors at the outset of the meeting and thanked them for their “great service in a time of transition.”

Highs and Lows

Since taking over in August, Cook, who was hired by Jobs in 1998 to run operations, has presided over a series of highs and lows. Apple reported record sales and profit in January on soaring holiday demand for iPad tablets and iPhones, with market researcher Gartner Inc. dubbing the iPhone the top-selling smartphone in the world in 2011.

The company shares are up about 36 percent since Jobs passed away in October, showing investor confidence in Cook and Apple’s top management team — almost all of whom have been at the company for 10 years or more. Earlier this month, the shares topped $500 for the first time, making Apple the world’s most valuable company with a market value of about $480 billion. (Exxon Mobile, at No. 2, is valued at $411 billion.)

On the downside, Cook has been pressured to help improve labor conditions at its suppliers’ factories in China, notably the Foxconn “campuses” where more than a dozen unhappy workers committed suicide in 2010. Protesters stood on the street outside Apple’s campus today, holding placards saying “Apple Make Ethical iPhones.”

To quell critics, Apple last week sent the Fair Labor Association, a non-profit funded by companies including Apple, Nike and Adidas, on a tour of the facilities in China where it says 90 percent of its products are made. The FLA says it’s conducting independent investigation and will report back in March on labor and living conditions at sites in Shenzhen and Chengdu.

Apple is also dealing with questions from Congress over how apps developers handle the privacy of iPhone users after social media developer Path was caught taking users’ address book data without their knowledge. While Cook has until Feb. 29 to respond to questions, Apple said last week that its changing the way apps will work to require “explicit user approval” regarding their contact data.

And if that’s not enough, Apple is continuing its two-year battle over iPad trademarks in China.

According to Apple’s proxy statement, Cook earned $900,000 in salary in 2011 and was awarded options on 1 million shares, half of which vest in 2016 and the rest in 2021. The award, which was based in part on input from Jobs, was valued at $376.2 million and should be viewed as a “long-term retention incentive” since it vests in five and 10 years.

“For all of you who have hung in with us and believed in us all of these years, thank you,” Cook said today.

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